A Disney Trip 10 Years in the Making. PTR 10/14 - 23/2011 - Page 2 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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That was such a wonderful story! Kids are well worth the wait if you ask me! The look they get on there faces when they get to Disney is priceless, and I am so glad that you will get to enjoy that moment in Oct! Hes a cutie!
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Me and Cole in the Sears Tower Skydeck, 103 floors up, in a glass box hanging off the side!
Love your backstory! So glad that you finally got your miracle
On our first trip, my oldest was 2 and my second just 6 mo.! (I think it was more magical for me than them ). But, we've been blessed enough to go almost every year since, and it gets more fun every time!
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Read all about it in my TR, "Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot!" Jill Phil. 4: 13
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What a wonderful backstory! Can't wait to follow along- the months will fly by! (Oh....and 6 months is not too early to start....I started my last PTR 9 months out ). The planning is a big part of the Disney fun!!!
We first took our kids when our son was 2 and our daughter was 4. We went in September and napped during the heat of the day. we stayed for 10 days and it was heaven! My best memories are in Fantasyland and the Family Magic hour they had in the morning. Winnie and the gang were hanging out and we skipped with Peter Pan and Captain Hook. I'll never forget the first time we rode IASW. Our son pointed at everything and was just in awe. It's one of my sentimental favorites! Abby dressed in her Cinderella dress for dinner at the castle. The look on her face when Cindy bent down to fix Abby's crown was just priceless. Worth every penny of that meal. The castle and Cindy are another sentimental favorite.
I'm so excited for you!!
Thanks for sharing, I'm excited too. I can't wait to make these kinds of memories with my little man.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
So touching! Holly, you and Evan have such a wonderful story!
Stefanie's first trip when she was 10 as we had wanted her to be big enough to ride as much as possible. The moment we walked down Main Street and her whole face lit up, I was sold on Disney forever.
Evan wil just be clearing 40 inches so I hope he can ride everything he wants. I'm so looking forward to this trip. Thanks for sharing yours.
Just got caught up! Great start and update! My son didn't go until he was 13 - wish I had brought him sooner! Can't wait for more
Thanks for joining in
Quote:
Originally Posted by OCEANGRLLG
That was such a wonderful story! Kids are well worth the wait if you ask me! The look they get on there faces when they get to Disney is priceless, and I am so glad that you will get to enjoy that moment in Oct! Hes a cutie!
Thanks - I think so too. He is already excited and we are reading some books and watching the free DVD as we plan things out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by I live with a 'Stitch'!
Love your backstory! So glad that you finally got your miracle
On our first trip, my oldest was 2 and my second just 6 mo.! (I think it was more magical for me than them ). But, we've been blessed enough to go almost every year since, and it gets more fun every time!
6 Months - oh God Bless you. I had wanted to go so many times before this but money held me back and knowing he has so much fun at the shore and that is inexpensive for us. I just stayed here so I'm really excited for this trip.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
Wonderful story, Holly! Evan is a beautiful child and it's terrific that you get to celebrate his first WDW trip with your extended family.
Yes there will be quite a few of us. We've traveled together before and kinda know our limits on the "togetherness" factor. I am so looking forward to his first trip.
Quote:
Originally Posted by islandgirl
What a wonderful backstory! Can't wait to follow along- the months will fly by! (Oh....and 6 months is not too early to start....I started my last PTR 9 months out ). The planning is a big part of the Disney fun!!!
Thanks for following along. I remember seeing your TR at 200 days out and now you are home and finishing your TR. I sure hope the time will fly by.
Holly - this trip you're beating me by one person.
I'm so excited for you. You're going to have a blast! You know we took Dylan for his 1st birthday and Lukas' 1st birthday will be his first trip too. I can say that having the extra people helps when it comes to taking kids. We have YET to go without anyone coming with us, but that may all be changing and just be the 4 of us next May.
Anyway, i can't wait to hear all your plans. I'm bummed we'll miss each other by just a couple weeks.
Holly - this trip you're beating me by one person.
I'm so excited for you. You're going to have a blast! You know we took Dylan for his 1st birthday and Lukas' 1st birthday will be his first trip too. I can say that having the extra people helps when it comes to taking kids. We have YET to go without anyone coming with us, but that may all be changing and just be the 4 of us next May.
Anyway, i can't wait to hear all your plans. I'm bummed we'll miss each other by just a couple weeks.
Thanks for joining in Kelly. Besides having the extra hands to help with the kids, it is always more fun when you have loved ones to share it with.
Today’s date: 03/17/11
Happy St. Patrick's Day Everyone
I dropped Evan off at daycare this morning and it was like a sea of green. Everyone was in the spirit of the holiday and wearing green - very cute.
Now on with the PTR...
Pre trip report Part Three
As I noted in my last update I had been planning this trip, in my head at least, for many years. About 2-3 years ago when I realized it was actually coming and knew everyone would be invited I just threw out the dates of sometime in 2011 or 2012. That would give everyone interested, aka my family, time to save money and vacation days.
Evan’s birthday is October 8th; the cut off for kindergarten in my town of Marlton, NJ is Sept 30th so he misses it by about a week. Really not a big deal because in typical little boy fashion, he can use the extra year to gain some maturity and self control over his impulses – especially those impulses to smack, wrestle and roll around on the floor, but I digress.
So he turns 5 this October and won’t begin school until next September (2012). That allowed me an 11 month window of time to book our trip. So there it was…really any date or time of year open to me – ahh the possibilities.
I announce to my family my intentions to take Evan to Disney and all are welcome to join us. My Mom is all over it and since she is retired there were no constraints on time of year or length of vacation for her.
My brother and his family, having their son in his first year of college and their daughter following closely behind – declined right away.
My sister and her family also decline.
But my other sister and her family accept whole heartedly. My sister Jill and I are very close, best friends really and her son Eric is best friends with Evan.
Again this was about 2 years ago and we all just agreed we are going sometime in 2011 or 2012 but we remained in a holding pattern as there wasn’t much to do at 2 years out. Every so often we would talk about the trip; we discussed different options about hotels and time of year and length of stay.
Finally, last summer (summer 2010) we, my sister Jill and I, got down to the nitty gritty to pick out dates. At this point we were, at what could potentially be, 1 year out. We knew we would be able to book hotels and flights soon so we started knocking around dates.
She has 3 children all of who are school age and she is a principle so I figured she would want to go in the summer. Nope, “too hot” she said.
She said she will never go again in the summer. That is fine by me as I don’t have to worry about school. She said she would rather have the kids miss a week of school than sweat like a pig. I don’t necessarily agree with that but they are not my kids.
So we rule out summer and immediately think about Teachers Convention. Here in NJ about the second week in November all public schools close for 2 days (a Thursday and Friday) and the teachers/administrators are supposed to attend a convention in Atlantic City. It used to be mandatory for them to attend as I remember my dad who was a teacher going to those. But somewhere along the line if became optional. To top it all off many school’s link in Veteran’s day/conferences/in service days or election day and often close for an entire week or 4 out of 5 days or only half days – you name it, we’ve seen it all.
As you can imagine many families head to Disney at this time, hence “Jersey Week” in WDW. This was the time my sister wanted to go. We were planning on going down on a Thursday and staying until the next Sunday (11 days).
We had to also work around my BIL who works in finance and has one of these jobs that the first 2 weeks of the month are crazy but the second 2 weeks are normal and the same thing each quarter. As it turns out BIL Steve was going to have to come down on Saturday but that was still all good.
Thanksgiving weekend we call to get rooms at Shades of Green (more on that decision in the next post). Ahh- all done…or so we though.
So we are all set, I was checking airfare and car rental prices and other tidbits here and there – hoping for a wonderful pin code to consider (which BTW I got in the mail last week, for the free Dining – go figure). Anyway, just biding my time when Shades of Green announces a sale, up to 50% off room rates, but only valid until the end of October.
So I check with my sister to see if she would be willing to change dates.
“For 50% off – YES!” she said without hesitation.
So I call Shades of Green – they have the discounted rooms available and we make the change. So we are now going October 14 not November 10th
The only change I really needed to “prepare for” was doing MNSSHP instead of MVMCP. Yea like that is a hard decision!
Actually, with so many cool things to do during the holidays and it being Evan’s first trip I was sort of afraid we wouldn’t have enough time to see them all if we went in November. Going in October there isn’t as much seasonal things so once we do the Halloween Party, we are pretty good to go. I’d still like to take Evan at Christmas sometime but perhaps when he is old enough to appreciate the story tellers and the choir processional.
So that is the very long story of how we choose the dates of October 14th thru 23rd.
What a gret start Holly and a beautiful story. Evan is just adorable. Life pretty much got in the way with my oldest so her first trip was when she was 12, but my youngest was just turning 5 - and she loved every magical moment.
Can't wait to hear more of your plans...what a great traveling part you have, a wonderful way to celebrate Evan's brithday.
Just got on board. What a great story. I am very excited for you and Evan. DH and I took the kids to DL in 2008 and they were 6 and 12. We had a blast. I am taking the kids this December to WDW for our first trip there. I want to hear lots of stories
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Karen and kids are Counting down to Christmas with Mickey!
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). But, we've been blessed enough to go almost every year since, and it gets more fun every time!
). The planning is a big part of the Disney fun!!! 
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